Name: ________________________________________ Grade & Section: ________________

Subject: MUSIC 10 Teacher: ________________________ Score: ______________

Lesson : Quarter 1 Week 5 LAS 1
Activity Title : Elements of music work
Learning Target : Describes distinctive musical elements of given pieces in 20th century styles.
Reference(s) : Learner’s Manual, MELCs (MU10TC-Ia-h-2)
LAS Writer : Jomar C. Castro

Did you enjoy listening to selected musical compositions? Now, let us see how they experimented
with the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, tempo, and timbre in daring ways never attempted
before.
Directions: Complete the table. Fill in the missing appropriate word/s.

STYLES COMPOSERS HOW DID THE ELEMENTS OF MUSIC WORK?

Claude Debussy Rhythm

Debussy avoided _______________ and
preferred free form.
Impressionism
Joseph Maurice Rave Harmony
His works are uniquely innovative but not
____________ style of harmonic treatment,

Primitivism Bela Bartok, Rhythm

He is known for employing lively rhythms
where changing meters and sharp
____________.
Neo-Classical Sergei Prokofieff Rhythm and harmony
His style is uniquely recognizable for its
progressive technique, pulsating
__________, melodic directness, and a
resolving __________.
Avant-garde Melody
Improvisation was a necessity in this style.
Musicians do not follow the written
__________________.

Modern Bartok, Prokofieff and Melody

nationalism Korsakov They made extensive use of
______________, a kind of atonality that
uses two or more tonal centers
simultaneously.
Electronic Musique Edgard Varese Timbre and rhythm
In musique concrete, the composer can
experiment with sounds that cannot be
produced by traditional
_______________________ such as the
piano or the violin.
Chance John Cage Timbre
The random techniques of production,
including the use of _________________ or
natural elements that become a part of the
music.
 Attachment in Week 5 LAS 1
Now, get ready to know the ways how the 20th century composers experimented on the
elements of music that never happen before. I hope you have internet connectivity to enjoy watching
and listening to performances and giving you enough understanding of the topic.
I. The Impressionists
20th-century music is known as impressionism. It is a French movement in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. Tune in this period uses extensive colors and effects, unclear melodies, and
innovative chords and progressions, leading to mild dissonances.
In impressionism, the sounds of different chords overlapped lightly with each other to produce
new subtle musical colors. Chords did not have a definite order and a sense of fair resolution. The
harmonic feature of this period is the tonic-dominant relationship. It typically gives the feeling of
finality to a piece, moods and textures, harmonic vagueness about the structure of certain chords,
and use of the whole-tone scale. Most of the impressionist works centered on nature and its beauty,
lightness, and brilliance. Some outstanding impressionists created works on this subject.
Claude Debussy is a French composer and one of the most important and
influential of the 20th century. He was the primary advocate of the
impressionist movement and the focal point for other impressionist
composers. Debussy changed the course of musical development by
dissolving traditional rules and conventions into a new language of possibilities in harmony, rhythm,
form, texture, and color. Debussy's compositions deviated from the usual rhythm of the romantic
period. They were seen by how he avoided rhythmic pulses and preferred free form and developed
his themes. Claire de Lune "moonlight" is one of his compositions with the influence of poetry, visual
arts, and music of the Baroque period. This piece is the third part of a suite entitled “Suite
Bergamasque," which refers to a type of medieval dance. Claire de Lune is a reflection of sadness in
one's life though in the midst of a festive atmosphere. Now let us listen to one of the works of
Debussy’s composition entitled Claire de Lune https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=Z9ihn4j7RhE&t=429s
Joseph Maurice Ravel is a French composer whose works style of music
characterized by its uniquely innovative but not atonal style of harmonic
treatment, defined with intricate and sometimes modal melodies and
extended chordal components. It demands considerable technical virtuosity from the performer, which
is the character, ability, or skill of a virtuoso—a person who excels in musical technique or execution.
One of his famous compositions is Pavane for a Dead Princess. The story behind this piece was not
mourning a dead princess, but a longing daydream of something a sixteenth-century Spanish
princess might have danced too. Here is a recording of Pavane for a Dead Princess
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKkeDqJBlK
II: Meet Bartok!
Primitivistic music is tonal through the asserting of one-note as more important than the others. This
music is closely linked to Exoticism when it means different from other cultures that use indigenous
materials to specific countries and Ethnicism through the use of materials from
European ethnic groups. Two well-known proponents of this style were Stravinsky and Bela Bartok. It
eventually evolved into Neo-classicism.
Bela Bartok, a Hungarian composer who published his first collection of 20 Hungarian folk songs
with his fellow composer Kodaly, in 1906. He employed lively rhythms where changing meters and
sharp syncopations. Now let us listen to Bartok’s composition entitled Sonatina.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raIdacyJtf4
III: Meet the Neo-Classicist!
Neo-classicism was a moderating factor between the emotional excesses of the Romantic
period and the violent impulses of the soul in expressionism. It was, in essence, a partial return to an
earlier style of writing, particularly the tightly-knit form of the Classical period, while combining tonal
harmonies with slight dissonances.
Sergei Prokofieff is regarded today as a combination of neo-classicist,
nationalist, and avant-garde composer. His style is uniquely recognizable for
its progressive technique, pulsating rhythms, melodic directness, and a
resolving dissonance. He wrote Peter and the Wolf, a lighthearted orchestral
work intended for children, to appease the continuing government
crackdown on avant-garde composers. Now let us listen to the excerpt of
Prokofieff’s composition entitled: Peter and the Wolf? https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=ctsWdUaHsHM
IV: Meet the Avant-Garde!
Closely associated with electronic music, the avant-garde movement dealt with the parameters
or the dimensions of sound in space. The avant-garde style exhibited a new attitude toward musical
mobility, whereby the order of note groups could be varied so that musical continuity will alter.
Improvisation was a necessity in this style. Musicians do not follow the written musical scores. For
example, everyone expects a performer to play the piece from left to right
or vice versa. Or the performer might turn the score over, and go on
dabbling indefinitely in whatever order before returning to the starting
point.
Leonard Bernstein is a conductor, pianist, composer, and lecturer. His
philosophy was that the universal language of music is usually rooted in
tonality. It means that the tonal relations, the notes, and chords within a
given key can create tension or resolve it as they move away from or toward the tonic note and chord.
Bernstein displayed a tuneful (melody), off-beat (rhythm), and highly atonal (harmony) approach to
the songs that can observed in his compositions such as the “West Side Story”
Let us listen to his famous works entitled "Tonight" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7jGAhfs2gs
V: Modern Nationalism!
A looser form of 20th-century music development focused on nationalist composers and
musical innovators who sought to combine modern techniques with folk
materials. However, this common ground stopped there, for the different
breeds of nationalists formed their writing styles. Bartok infused Classical
techniques into his own brand of cross rhythms and shifting meters to
demonstrate many barbaric and primitive themes that were Hungarian—
particularly gypsy—in origin. Prokofieff used striking dissonances and Russian themes, and his music
was generally witty, bold, and at times colored with humor.
Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov used striking dissonances and Russian themes, and his music was
generally witty, bold, and at times colored with humor. Together with Bartok, Prokofieff made
extensive use of polytonality, a kind of atonality that uses two or more tonal centers simultaneously.
An example of this style is Prokofieff’s Visions Fugitive. The piece seems to be performed around a
fugitive tonality, which means the composer did not use many chords to make his work beautiful. Let
us listen to his famous works entitled Visions Fugitive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=lPxIT7xZdNY
VI: Electronic Music!
Music that uses the tape recorder is called musique concrete, or concrete music. Different
sounds heard in the environment are recorded; bustle traffic, sound of the wind, the barking of dogs,
the strumming of a guitar, or the cry of an infant. The composer arranges these sounds in different
ways, such as by playing the tape recorder in its fastest or reverse mode.
In musique concrete, the composer can experiment with sounds that cannot be produced by
traditional musical instruments such as the piano or the violin.
Edgard Varèse was born on December 22, 1883. He was considered an
"innovative French-born composer." However, he spent the greater part of
his life and career in the United States, where he pioneered and created
new sounds bordered between music and noise. An emphasis on timbre
and rhythm characterizes the musical compositions of Varese. He invented
the term "organized sound," which means that certain timbres and rhythms
are in a group to capture a whole new definition of sound. Although his complete surviving works are
scarce, he has recognized to have influenced several significant composers of the late 20th Century.
VII: Take A Chance!
Chance music refers to a style wherein the piece always sounds different at every
performance—the use of ring modulators or natural elements that become a part of the music.
Sounds are emanating from the surroundings, both real and human-made, such as honking cars,
rustling leaves, blowing wind, dripping water, or a ringing phone. As such, there will be no duplication
of sounds as each happens by chance.
John Cage was known as one of the 20th-century composers with the
broadest array of sounds in his works. He is one of the original composers
in the history of western music. He challenged the very idea of music by
manipulating musical instruments to achieve new sounds. He experimented
with what came to be known as "chance music." In one instance, Cage
created a "prepared" piano, where screws and pieces of wood or paper
were inserted between the piano strings to produce different percussive
possibilities.
The prepared piano style found its way into Cage's Sonatas and Interludes
(1946–1948), a cycle of pieces containing a wide range of sounds, lyrical themes, and hypnotic
quality. His involvement with Zen Buddhism inspired him to compose Music of Changes (1951),
written for conventional piano, that employed chance compositional processes.